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The Copernican Revolution - Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought (Paperback, Revised)
Loot Price: R717
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The Copernican Revolution - Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought (Paperback, Revised)
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For scientist and layman alike this book provides vivid evidence
that the Copernican Revolution has by no means lost its
significance today. Few episodes in the development of scientific
theory show so clearly how the solution to a highly technical
problem can alter our basic thought processes and attitudes.
Understanding the processes which underlay the Revolution gives us
a perspective, in this scientific age, from which to evaluate our
own beliefs more intelligently. With a constant keen awareness of
the inseparable mixture of its technical, philosophical, and
humanistic elements, Thomas S. Kuhn displays the full scope of the
Copernican Revolution as simultaneously an episode in the internal
development of astronomy, a critical turning point in the evolution
of scientific thought, and a crisis in Western man's concept of his
relation to the universe and to God. The book begins with a
description of the first scientific cosmology developed by the
Greeks. Mr. Kuhn thus prepares the way for a continuing analysis of
the relation between theory and observation and belief. He
describes the many functions-astronomical, scientific, and
nonscientific-of the Greek concept of the universe, concentrating
especially on the religious implications. He then treats the
intellectual, social, and economic developments which nurtured
Copernicus' break with traditional astronomy. Although many of
these developments, including scholastic criticism of Aristotle's
theory of motion and the Renaissance revival of Neoplatonism, lie
entirely outside of astronomy, they increased the flexibility of
the astronomer's imagination. That new flexibility is apparent in
the work of Copernicus, whose De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium
(On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) is discussed in detail
both for its own significance and as a representative scientific
innovation. With a final analysis of Copernicus' life work-its
reception and its contribution to a new scientific concept of the
universe-Mr. Kuhn illuminates both the researches that finally made
the heliocentric arrangement work, and the achievements in physics
and metaphysics that made the planetary earth an integral part of
Newtonian science. These are the developments that once again
provided man with a coherent and self-consistent conception of the
universe and of his own place in it. This is a book for any reader
interested in the evolution of ideas and, in particular, in the
curious interplay of hypothesis and experiment which is the essence
of modern science. Says James Bryant Conant in his Foreword:
"Professor Kuhn's handling of the subject merits attention,
for...he points the way to the road which must be followed if
science is to be assimilated into the culture of our times."
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